AMERICAN 

PROHIBITION 


By 

ERNEST  H.  CHERRINGTON 


General  Secretary  of  the  World  League 
oAgainst  cAlcoholism 


WORLD  LEAGUE  AGAINST  ALCOHOLISM 
WESTERVILLE,  OHIO.  U.  S.  A. 


Address  to  the  Eighteenth  International 
Congress  Against  Alcoholism 
Tartu,  Esthonia,  July  26,  1926 


AMERICAN  PROHIBITION 

By  ERNEST  H.  CHERRINGTON  , 

General  Secretary  World  League 
Jl gainst  Alcoholism 


^ HE  beverage  alcohol  problem  is  a 
V J world  problem.  In  its  economic,  so- 
cial, political  and  moral  aspects  it 
presents  one  of  the  greatest  international 
problems  of  the  modern  age. 

The  liquor  problem  in  the  United  States  of 
America  is  only  a small  part  of  the  larger 
problem  that  confronts  the  world.  Neverthe- 
less, the  American  people  are  coming  rapidly 
to  understand  that  their  liquor  problem  can 
never  be  solved  completely  until  the  larger 
world  problem  is  at  least  well  on  its  way  to- 
ward solution.  They  are  also  coming  to  real- 
ize that  American  experience  with  prohibition 
must  of  necessity  have  a far-reaching  influ- 
ence on  the  solution  of  the  larger  problem. 
The  success  or  failure  of  prohibition  in  Amer- 
ica, therefore,  is  of  real  concern  to  those 
forces  in  every  country  who  are  grappling 
with  this  great  question.  If  American  prohi- 
bition succeeds,  such  success  will  undoubt- 
edly accelerate  the  movement  against  alco- 
holism in  other  countries.  If  American  pro- 
hibition should  fail,  such  failure  would  un- 
doubtedly tend  to  discourage  the  anti-alcohol 
forces  in  other  parts  of  the  world  and  to  de- 
lay the  final  solution  of  the  world-wide 
problem. 


Is  American  Prohibition  an  Experiment? 

The  press  of  almost  every  country  appar- 
ently has  considered  national  prohibition  in 
the  United  States  as  a new  method  of  dealing 
with  the  liquor  problem  and  has  emphasized 
[3] 


what  it  has  been  pleased  to  term  the  Ameri- 
can experiment  with  prohibition. 

Prohibition,  however,  is  by  no  means  a 
new  method  of  dealing  with  beverage  alco- 
hol. The  state  of  Maine  has  been  under  pro- 
hibition for  almost  seventy  years.  Kansas 
has  had  prohibition  for  almost  half  a century. 
North  Dakota  has  had  a prohibitory  law  ever 
since  it  became  a state.  More  than  half  the 
other  states  of  the  American  Union  have 
been  under  state-wide  prohibition  for  periods 
ranging  from  ten  to  twenty  years.  Hundreds 
of  American  cities,  ranging  in  population 
from  10,000  to  more  than  100,000,  each  have 
been  under  prohibition  for  periods  of  from 
fifteen  to  thirty-five  years,  and  thousands  of 
other  political  units,  such  as  villages,  town- 
ships, counties  and  large  portions  of  great 
metropolitan  areas  have  had  prohibition  of 
beverage  alcohol  for  more  than  a generation. 

Before  national  constitutional  prohibition 
went  into  effect  in  the  United  States  of 
America,  in  1920,  75  per  cent  of  all  the  coun- 
ties, 85  per  cent  of  all  the  villages  and  90  per 
cent  of  all  the  townships,  in  all  the  states, 
were  already  under  prohibition  by  state  en- 
actments. Thirty-three  of  the  forty-eight 
states  were  under  state-wide  prohibition 
laws.  The  District  of  Columbia,  all  Indian 
countries,  all  army  posts  and  most  of  the  ter- 
ritory controlled  by  Congress  and  the  fed- 
eral government,  including  Alaska  and  Ha- 
waii, were  under  absolute  prohibition  by  na- 
tional legislation.  Sixty-eight  per  cent  of  the 
entire  population  of  the  United  States  and 
95  per  cent  of  the  land  area  were  under  pro- 
hibition before  the  national  prohibitory  law 
went  into  effect.  The  national  law,  there- 
fore, as  a matter  of  fact,  simply  extended  the 
prohibition  policy  that  formerly  prevailed  in 

[4] 


95  per  cent  of  the  land  area,  which  in- 
cluded 68  per  cent  of  the  population,  to  the 
additional  S per  cent  of  the  land  area,  in 
which  lived  32  per  cent  of  the  nation’s  popu- 
lation. 

American  prohibition,  therefore,  is  no  ex-' 
periment.  The  policy  had  been  thoroughly 
tested  during  long  periods  of  years  in  rural 
precincts,  townships,  villages,  counties,  cities 
and  states.  The  experimental  period  for  pro- 
hibition came  long  before  the  constitutional 
amendment  was  submitted  by  Congress.  The 
submission  of  national  prohibition  and  its 
adoption  by  the  nation  were  deliberate  acts, 
based  upon  long  experience  under  the  prohi- 
bition policy  of  an  overwhelming  majority 
of  the  American  people. 

Otheb  Proposed  Solutions  Thoroughly 
Tested 

Before  the  United  States  of  America  de- 
cided upon  the  policy  of  prohibition,  prac- 
tically every  proposed  solution  for  the 
liquor  problem  that  has  been  presented  in 
any  other  country  of  the  world  and  prac- 
tically every  proposed  solution  now  advo- 
cated by  the  enemies  of  prohibition  in 
America  had  been  thoroughly  tested  and 
tried. 

Early  efforts  of  the  American  temperance 
forces  were  directed  against  drunkenness, 
finding  their  expression  in  laws  dealing  with 
the  individual  use  of  beverage  alcohol.  The 
difficulty  in  securing  satisfactory  results  by 
such  methods  led  the  American  temperance 
advocates  to  extend  their  efforts  to  the  se- 
curing of  laws  regulating  the  sale  of  bever- 
age alcohol  with  regard  to  hours  of  sale, 
persons  to  whom  sales  could  be  made,  quan- 
tity to  be  sold  to  any  individual  at  one  time 
and  with  regard  to  periods  in  each  week 

[S] 


when  no  sales  were  permitted.  The  scien- 
tific disclosures  set  forth  by  Dr.  Benjamin 
Rush,  during  the  thirty-five  years  following 
1775,  directed  the  attention  of  the  American 
public  to  the  important  fact  that  the  evils  of 
beverage  alcohol  manifest  themselves,  not 
only  in  the  form  of  drunkenness,  but  in 
many  other  ways.  Following  these  revela- 
tions temperance  reform  activities  took  on 
new  life.  Farmers  of  Connecticut,  for  in- 
stance, joined  together  to  exclude  strong 
liquors  from  the  harvest  fields  in  1789.  Or- 
ganized movements  among  citizens  of  Vir- 
ginia, Pennsylvania  and  New  England  for 
combatting  the  evils  of  so-called  hard 
liquor  took  shape  in  1804,  1805  and  1806.  The 
Billy  Clark  Temperance  Society  Against  the 
Use  of  Ardent  Spirits  was  organized  in  1808 
and  church  denominations,  such  as  the 
Presbyterians,  the  Congregationalists  and 
the  Methodists,  took  action  aggressively  to 
combat  the  evils  of  alcoholism  between  the 
years  1811  and  1817.  These  efforts,  how- 
ever, were  against  distilled  spirits,  most 
temperance  advocates  of  that  period  insist- 
ing that  the  use  of  beer  and  wine  was  not 
harmful.  In  fact,  the  first  state  temperance 
organization,  in  1813,  and  the  first  national 
temperance  organization,  in  1826,  were  ap- 
parently imbued  with  the  idea  that  if  the  use 
of  distilled  spirits  could  be  stopped  the  bev- 
erage alcohol  problem  would  be  solved. 

The  Beer  and  Wine  Theory 
The  advocacy  of  beer  and  wine  as  the 
ideal  solution  for  the  alcohol  problem,  to 
which  the  anti-prohibitionists  of  today  are 
pinning  their  hopes,  is  by  no  means  new. 
Between  1810  and  1840  the  beer  and  wine 
theory  had  its  really  great  inning.  Every 
argument  now  used  in  favor  of  beer  and 

[6] 


wine  was  then  emphasized.  Ministers  in 
church  denominations  were  sharply  divided 
on  the  question.  Members  of  state  and  na- 
tional temperance  organizations  could  not 
agree  on  a beer  and  wine  policy,  and  were, 
therefore,  compelled  to  make  their  fight  as 
organized  forces  against  distilled  spirits, 
while  the  enemies  of  all  temperance  reform 
grasped  their  opportunity  and  advocated  the 
use  of  beer  as  a real  temperance  beverage. 
As  a result  the  beer  habit  was  fastened 
upon  the  American  people,  while  the  beer 
industry  and  the  consumption  of  beer  con- 
tinued to  increase  by  leaps  and  bounds  for 
almost  seventy  years  thereafter.  It  is  a sig- 
nificant fact  that  while  the  per  capita  con- 
sumption of  distilled  spirits  in  the  United 
States  decreased  from  two  and  one-half  gal- 
lons in  1840  to  about  one  and  one-half  gal- 
lons in  1907,  the  per  capita  consumption  of 
malt  liquors  increased  during  the  same 
period  from  slightly  more  than  one  and  one- 
third  gallons  to  more  than  twenty  gallons. 
The  great  increase  in  the  consumption  of 
beer  increased  the  consumption  of  pure 
alcohol. 

With  the  failure  of  beer  to  solve  the  prob- 
lem of  intemperance  and  on  account  of  the 
growing  tendency  of  the  retailers  of  bever- 
age alcohol  to  disregard  all  regulations,  re- 
strictions and  laws  which  had  been  enacted 
to  reduce  the  evils  of  alcoholism,  the  so- 
called  license  system  came  into  vogue.  The 
champions  of  the  license  system  insisted,  on 
its  behalf,  that  by  placing  a license  on  the 
traffic,  by  compelling  every  one  who  sold 
intoxicants  to  have  a license  and  by  provid- 
ing for  the  withdrawal  of  the  license  from 
those  who  failed  to  observe  the  rules  and 
regulations  laid  down,  the  liquor  problem 

[7] 


would  quickly  be  solved.  The  theory  ap- 
peared plausible.  The  license  provision  was 
to  be  like  the  sword  of  Damocles,  con- 
stantly hanging  over  the  head  of  those  who 
sold  intoxicating  liquors  to  compel  them  to 
obey  the  law  and  to  see  that  their  customers 
were  temperate.  The  result  was  disastrous. 
The  only  good  in  the  license  laws  was  in 
the  prohibitions  contained  in  those  laws. 
The  license  system,  supplemented  by  the 
revenue  system,  soon  turned  the  sword  of 
Damocles  into  a great  shield  of  protection 
and  did  more  to  entrench  and  promote  the 
liquor  traffic  in  America  than  any  other 
system  ever  devised  for  the  purpose  of  cur- 
tailing its  evils. 

The  promotion  of  beer  as  the  great  Amer- 
ican so-called  temperance  drink  and  the 
growing  evils  resulting  from  its  rapidly  in- 
creasing use  soon  brought  the  temperance 
and  moral  reform  forces  to  a united  effort 
against  all  intoxicating  liquors,  including 
both  beer  and  wine. 

The  Washingtonian  movement  of  1840  in- 
augurated the  new  crusade  against  intem- 
perance, which  for  more  than  a quarter  of 
a century  manifested  itself  in  the  form  of 
membership  temperance  organizations,  such 
as  “The  Sons  of  Temperance,”  the  Good 
Templars,  the  “Dashaways,”  the  “Teetotal- 
ers,” the  “Templars  of  Honor  and  Temper- 
ance,” the  “Rechabites”  and  numerous  simi- 
lar organizations.  Through  these  organized 
efforts  hundreds  of  thousands  of  American 
citizens  pledged  themselves  to  abstain  from 
the  use  of  all  beverage  alcohol  and  to  use 
their  efforts  to  prevent  its  use  by  others. 
The  splendid  educational  work  done  by 
these  organizations  not  only  formed  the 
foundation  upon  which  was  builded  the 

[§] 


Prohibition  party  in  1868  and  the  Woman’s 
Crusade  of  1873,  out  of  which  grew  the 
Woman’s  Christian  Temperance  Union,  but 
it  created  a public  sentiment  throughout  the 
nation,  resulting  in  the  adoption  of  prohibi- 
tion laws  in  a large  number  of  states  just 
prior  to  the  outbreak  of  the  Civil  War. 

The  GovEBiiTMENT  Control  Plan 
The  aroused  liquor  forces,  spurred  to  ac- 
tion by  the  state  prohibition  campaigns  just 
prior  to  the  war  and  encouraged  by  the  ac- 
tion of  the  government,  which  placed  heavy 
taxation  on  the  liquor  traffic  for  war  pur- 
poses, made  every  effort  following  the  war 
to  perpetuate  the  evil  by  both  federal  and 
state  systems  of  taxation  for  revenue.  The 
renewed  activities  of  the  temperance  forces, 
however,  after  the  conflict  between  the 
states  and  the  troublesome  reconstruction 
period  that  followed,  began  to  make  great 
headway  again  toward  state  prohibitory  leg- 
islation. Temperance  compromisers,  together 
with  the  friends  of  the  liquor  traffic,  there- 
upon evolved  the  scheme  of  so-called  gov- 
ernment control,  which  was  the  name  ap- 
plied for  deceptive  purposes  for  what  in 
reality  was  nothing  more  or  less  than  gov- 
ernment promotion  of  the  beverage  liquor 
traffic  and  government  sale  of  beverage 
alcohol.  Government  participation  under 
the  dispensary  system  was  heralded  as  the 
Utopian  scheme  for  the  solution  of  the  prob- 
lem. Great  numbers  of  villages  and  cities, 
especially  in  the  South,  promptly  established 
municipal  dispensaries.  State  governments 
hastened  to  avail  themselves  of  this  new  cure 
for  the  evils  of  alcoholism.  County  dispen- 
saries in  state  after  state  came  into  exist- 
ence under  state  control.  The  most  com- 
plete dispensary  system  was  established  in 

[9] 


South  Carolina,  where  it  continued  in  opera- 
tion until  the  people  of  that  state  and  all  the 
other  states  where  the  system  had  been  in- 
augurated awoke  to  discover  that  the  dis- 
pensary, which  officially  placed  the  state 
in  the  retail  liquor  business  and  which  ele- 
vated the  saloonkeeper  and  the  bartender  to 
positions  as  state  public  officials,  had  fos- 
tered and  created  perhaps  the  greatest  sys- 
tem of  graft  and  political  corruption  that 
those  states  had  ever  known.  Long  before 
the  final  campaign  for  national  prohibition 
the  states  had  repealed  all  laws  providing 
for  dispensaries  and  for  government  sale. 

Prohibition  the  Only  Solution 

More  than  half  a century  of  effort  on  the 
part  of  the  American  people  to  find  a solu- 
tion for  the  beverage  alcohol  problem  gave 
full  opportunity  for  trying  out  and  thor- 
oughly testing  every  possible  device  and 
every  known  method  which  had  been  pro- 
posed and  which  has  since  been  proposed  as 
a panacea  for  the  evils  of  the  traffic.  One 
by  one  they  were  tested  and  put  into  opera- 
tion, with  the  result  that  after  full  and  fair 
trial  they  were  found  to  be  not  only  inade- 
quate, but  in  most  cases  subversive  of  the 
very  purpose  for  which  they  were  in- 
augurated. 

Thus  the  students  of  the  social  and  polit- 
ical phases  of  the  alcohol  problem  and  the 
temperance  forces  generally  were  driven  to 
the  inevitable  conclusion  that  the  only  ade- 
quate solution  of  the  problem  was  to  be 
found  in  absolute  prohibition. 

Public  opinion,  however,  throughout  the 
nation  was  not  sufficiently  strong  to  make 
national  prohibition  an  early  possibility.  In 
most  of  the  states,  moreover,  the  majority 
sentiment  was  still  against  such  a radical 

[ 10] 


method.  Consequently  there  came  into  op- 
eration in  most  of  the  states  the  local  option 
system,  whereby  the  people  of  any  com- 
munity, township,  village  or  county  were  en- 
abled to  establish  prohibition  so  soon  as  the 
sentiment  in  any  such  political  unit  became 
strong  enough  to  secure  its  enactment. 

Local  option  was  the  great  entering  wedge 
for  state  prohibition.  It  also  furnished  the 
opportunity  for  extensive  educational  cam- 
paigns, in  which  the  merits  of  prohibition 
were  publicly  discussed  and  appeared  in  the 
press  in  practically  every  village  and  hamlet 
of  every  state  outside  the  great  metropolitan 
cities,  where  the  liquor  interests  were  strong 
enough  to  control  the  press  and  to  prevent 
the  kind  of  educational  campaigns  conducted 
in  practically  all  other  parts  of  the  nation. 

As  municipality  after  municipality  and 
rural  district  after  rural  district  came  under 
prohibition  by  the  local  option  route  it  was 
soon  discovered  that  full  enforcement  of 
prohibition  in  such  small  political  units  re- 
quired the  co-operation  of  surrounding  units 
and  of  counties  as  a whole.  Thereby  county 
option  came  into  vogue.  But  as  county 
after  county  thus  came  under  prohibition, 
until  a majority  of  all  the  counties  of  the 
nation  had  adopted  the  prohibition  policy,  it 
became  apparent  that  complete  enforcement 
of  prohibition  in  the  counties  required  state 
action.  Moreover,  as  state  after  state  finally 
came  to  adopt  prohibition  as  a state-wide 
policy  it  became  increasingly  evident  that 
complete  enforcement  of  prohibition  in  the 
state  required  national  action.  Hence  Amer- 
ican prohibition  was  not  a revolution.  It 
was  an  evolution. 

Public  Opinion  and  Prohibition 

The  sure  foundation  of  national  prohibi- 

[ 11  ] 


tion  was  laid  during  the  thirty  years  prior  to 
1917  by  the  methods  of  local  option  for  vil- 
lages, townships  and  counties  and  by  state- 
wide referendum  elections,  by  educational 
speaking  and  press  campaigns  and  by  scien- 
tific temperance  instruction  in  the  public 
schools. 

Before  national  prohibition  sixty-six  of  the 
ninety-six  members  of  the  United  States  Sen- 
ate represented,  in  the  federal  government, 
states  that  had  already  adopted  prohibition 
as  a state  policy,  while  70  per  cent  of  the 
members  of  the  lower  house  of  Congress  rep- 
resented congressional  districts  already  un- 
der prohibition,  either  through  local  option 
or  by  state  law. 

The  official  majority  for  the  adoption  and 
ratification  of  the  Eighteenth  Amendment  to 
the  Federal  Constitution  is  unparalleled  in 
the  history  of  the  republic.  The  first  eleven 
amendments  to  the  Constitution  were  rati- 
fied by  the  bare  three-fourths  majority  re- 
quired. When  it  came  to  the  Twelfth 
Amendment  we  had  seventeen  states,  but 
four  of  those  failed  to  ratify.  Five  states 
failed  to  ratify  the  Thirteenth  Amendment. 
Four  failed  to  ratify  the  Fourteenth.  Six 
states  did  not  ratify  the  Fifteenth  Amend- 
ment. Six  did  not  ratify  the  Sixteenth 
Amendment.  Twelve  states  did  not  ratify 
the  Seventeenth  Amendment  and  ten  states 
have  not  ratified  the  Nineteenth  Amendment. 
In  the  case  of  the  Eighteenth  Amendment, 
h.owever,  of  the  forty-eight  states,  forty-six 
ratified. 

The  aggregate  majority  for  the  original 
Constitution  in  all  the  state  ratification  con- 
ventions was  about  two  to  one.  The  aggre- 
gate majority  for  ratification  of  the  Eight- 

[ 12] 


eenth  Amendment  in  all  the  State  Legisla- 
tures was  more  than  four  to  one. 

Prior  to  the  outlawing  of  the  liquor  traffic 
by  Congress  and  the  states  the  opponents  of 
prohibition  w'ere  given  eminently  fair  con- 
sideration. They  always  had  the  distinct  ad- 
vantage in  the  contest. 

So  long  as  they  could  hold  just  one  more 
than  one-third  of  either  house  of  Congress 
they  were  able  to  prevent  national  prohibi- 
tion. Six  wet  states,  through  their  repre- 
sentatives in  the  lower  house  of  Congress, 
could  have  prevented  national  prohibition, 
but  the  liquor  traffic  finally  reached  the  point 
where  it  could  not  hold  to  its  support  even 
the  Congressmen  from  those  six  wet  states. 

Even  after  national  prohibition  was  sub- 
mitted by  Congress  it  had  to  run  the  gaunt- 
let of  ninety-six  state  legislative  bodies  (two 
in  each  state).  So  long  as  the  liquor  inter- 
ests could  hold  the  support  of  a bare  major- 
ity in  one  house  in  each  of  thirteen  states 
they  were  able  to  block  national  prohibition. 
But  they  could  not  hold  even  that  margin. 
Out  of  the  ninety-six  state  legislative  bodies 
ninety-three  voted  to  ratify. 

By  all  proper  standards  the  Eighteenth 
Amendment  and  the  national  prohibitory 
law  were  nothing  more  nor  less  than  the 
translation  of  American  public  opinion  into 
law. 

Enforcement  and  Observance 

The  great  problem  of  enforcement  of  na- 
tional prohibition  is  to  be  found  in  the  large 
metropolitan  areas,  mostly  along  the  north- 
ern and  central  Atlantic  seaboard  and  along 
the  international  boundaries.  The  home- 
brew menace,  which  arose  in  the  first  three 
years  following  the  going  into  effect  of  na- 
tional prohibition,  has  very  greatly  subsided. 

[13] 


The  novelty  has  worn  ofi  and  the  concoc- 
tions produced  by  that  process  have  not 
proved  to  be  either  satisfactory  to  the  old 
topers  or  alluring  to  new  recruits.  Equip- 
ment for  home  stills  has  come  to  be  a drug 
on  the  market,  while  the  increased  efficiency 
of  both  state  and  national  enforcement  op- 
eratives has  made  that  particular  source  of 
supply  for  sale  purposes  both  unprofitable 
and  dangerous. 

Moonshining  is  likewise  on  the  wane. 
There  are  certain  sections,  especially  along 
the  Appalachian  mountain  ranges,  where 
moonshine  stills  continue  to  operate,  but 
their  operation  is  far  more  dangerous  than 
it  has  ever  been  in  the  past  and  the  federal 
internal  revenue  department  is  coping  with 
this  particular  source  of  supply  fully  as  ef- 
fectively as  before  national  prohibition  came. 
The  greatest  present  sources  for  the  supply 
of  bootleg  liquor  are  the  diversion  of  indus- 
trial alcohol  to  bootleg  channels  through  de- 
naturing plants  and  the  smuggling  of  alco- 
holic beverages  across  the  international  bor- 
der. The  rapid  progress  made  by  the  federal 
government  during  the  last  two  years  in 
dealing  with  these  two  main  sources  of  sup- 
ply is  probably  more  responsible  than  any 
other  factor  for  the  tremendous  counter 
drive  which  has  recently  been  made  by  what 
remains  in  America  of  the  old  beverage 
liquor  interests,  which  drive  has  manifested 
itself  in  recent  hearings  before  United  Statejs 
Senate  committees,  in  efforts  put  forth  for 
so-called  referendum  campaigns  and  in  the 
special  activity  in  certain  normally  wet  states 
and  congressional  districts  for  the  election  of 
Congressmen  and  United  States  Senators 
who  agree  to  stand  for  modification. 

The  organization  of  a new  federal  enforce- 

[14] 


meat  department,  to  cope  with  the  problems 
which  were  to  be  expected  in  connection 
with  the  enforcement  of  the  federal  law,  has 
very  naturally  not  been  without  many  diffi- 
culties. Temptations  to  moderately  paid  op- 
eratives have  been  very  great.  There  has 
been  considerable  corruption  of  law  enforce- 
ment officers — local,  state  and  national — but 
no  unprejudiced  student  of  enforcement  con- 
ditions can  but  admit  that  effective  and 
splendid  progress  has  been  made  against 
great  odds  in  the  enforcement  of  the  law  and 
that  with  every  passing  month  increased  ef- 
ficiency, wider  activity  and  greater  success 
in  every  way  marks  the  record  of  the  federal 
enforcement  department.  There  is  evidence, 
also,  of  more  activity  and  greater  effective- 
ness during  the  past  year  on  the  part  of 
state  enforcement  officials  in  most  of  the 
states.  Taking  everything  into  account  the 
progress  in  enforcement  thus  far  is  most 
encouraging. 

The  American  people  are  rapidly  coming 
to  recognize  the  fact  that  adequate  enforce- 
ment of  the  law  is  not  to  be  secured  by  spas- 
modic efforts  or  by  any  revolutionary  proc- 
ess. They  are  coming  to  understand  that  the 
fight  for  complete  enforcement  must,  of  ne- 
cessity, be  a long,  hard  drive  and  that  eternal 
vigilance  will  be  necessary.  They  under- 
stand, moreover,  that  the  problem  of  law  ob- 
servance is  even  more  important  than  that 
of  law  enforcement  and  that  observance  of 
the  prohibition  law  has  implications  that  are 
far-reaching  and  that  are  bound  eventually 
to  affect  the  attitu(ie  of  the  people  generally 
toward  other  laws.  This  wholesome  lesson 
is  being  learned  even  by  those  who  were 
first  inclined  to  treat  the  prohibition  law 
with  less  deference  than  other  laws  in  the 


enforcement  of  which  they  are  particularly 
interested.  While  both  law  enforcement  and 
law  observance  are  far  from  being  what  they 
should  be  and  what  they  must  be,  neverthe- 
less progress  is  being  made  and  conditions 
are  constantly  improving. 

Adequate  enforcement  and  adequate  ob- 
servance will  not  be  secured  until  the  people 
in  all  sections  obey  the  law,  not  only  because 
it  is  the  law,  but  also  because  of  their  belief 
in  and  devotion  to  the  principle  of  righteous- 
ness back  of  the  law. 

Is  Prohibition  a Success  or  a Failure? 

There  is  a vast  difference  between  the 
question  as  to  whether  prohibition  in  Amer- 
ica is  a complete  success  and  the  question  as 
to  whether  it  is  a substantial  success  and  a 
greater  success  than  any  other  tried  method. 
In  determining  the  success  or  failure  of  pro- 
hibition some  factors  that  have  to  do  with 
common  knowledge  of  conditions  should  be 
taken  into  account.  It  is  not  necessary  to 
gather  a mass  of  statistics  to  determine  cer- 
tain facts  that  have  very  much  to  do  with 
answering  the  question. 

The  average  observing  individual  can  easily 
answer  for  himself  the  important  question  as 
to  whether,  as  a rule,  there  is  now  greater  or 
less  evidence  of  the  beverage  liquor  traffic 
and  its  evils  on  the  streets  of  any  city,  on 
railroad  trains,  in  interurban  and  street  cars, 
hotels,  restaurants,  manufacturing  plants,, 
business  houses,  local,  state  and  federal  pub- 
lic buildings,  city  council  chambers,  state 
legislative  halls  and  congressional  lobbies. 
The  average  casual  observer  who  recalls  con-’ 
ditions  before  the  adoption  of  prohibition  can 
easily  tell  for  himself  whether  today  there  is 
more  or  less  evidence  of  drinking  and  drunk- 
enness at  public  meetings,  in  caucuses,  state, 

[16] 


local  and  national  political  conventions,  fairs, 
baseball  and  football  games,  holiday  celebra- 
tions and  functions  of  almost  every  public 
character. 

Is  it  reasonable  to  believe  that  a commod- 
ity such  as  liquor,  which  was  before  prohibi- 
tion advertised  perhaps  more  widely  than 
any  other  commodity  in  the  newspapers, 
magazines,  on  billboards  and  electric  signs 
all  over  the  country  and  which  was  sold 
openly  in  hundreds  of  thousands  of  retail 
establishments  on  the  principal  street  cor- 
ners of  our  cities  and  towns,  would  have  a 
larger  sale  and  consumption  now  that  all  ad- 
vertisements have  been  prohibited;  that  the 
entire  trade  has  been  outlawed  and  that 
when  one  wishes  to  purchase  a drink  he  must 
resort  to  clandestine  places  and  methods  and 
even  then  not  be  certain  as  to  whether  he 
will  be  poisoned  or  whether  he  will  be  ar- 
rested? 

If  the  liquor  now  used  is  so  deadly  and  yet 
more  than  ever  is  used,  as  many  enemies  of 
prohibition  insistently  aver,  how  does  it  hap- 
pen that  the  public  health  record  of  the  na- 
tion is  so  much  better  in  recent  years  and 
that  the  national  death  rate  has  been  lower 
since  national  prohibition  went  into  effect 
than  at  any  other  time  in  the  history  of  the 
republic? 

These  questions  answer  themselves  and 
they  apply  not  only  to  those  sections  of  the 
nation  which  were  under  prohibition  before 
national  prohibition  was  adopted,  but  they 
also  apply  to  those  great  American  cities 
where  the  greatest  problems  of  enforcement 
and  observance  are  presented. 

Is  Ameeican  Prohibition  in  Danger  of 
Repeal  or  Modification? 

A large  portion  of  the  metropolita''n  press 

[17] 


in  America,  as  well  as  the  press  in  most 
other  countries,  during  recent  months,  has 
given  the  casual  reader  reason  to  believe  that 
the  question  of  repeal  or  serious  modification 
of  the  national  prohibitory  law  is  at  present 
a real  issue  in  the  United  States.  A few 
salient  facts  are  worthy  of  consideration  in 
this  connection. 

Under  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States  the  Constitution  itself  is  not  amended 
or  changed  by  newspaper  reports,  by  action 
of  state  officials  in  any  state  or  by  popular 
referendums.  There  is  but  one  way  of  chang- 
ing the  Constitution  of  the  United  States, 
consequently  there  is  but  one  way  of  chang- 
ing or  repealing  the  Eighteenth  Amendment 
to  the  Constitution.  Two-thirds  of  the  mem- 
bers of  each  of  the  two  houses  of  Congress 
would  first  of  all  have  to  submit  a proposed 
change  in  the  Eighteenth  Amendment  to  the 
several  states.  After  such  a submission 
three-fourths  of  the  states  would  need  to 
ratify  such  a proposal  before  any  such 
change  or  repeal  could  be  made.  Therefore, 
so  long  as  thirteen  of  the  forty-eight  states 
stand  firm  for  the  Eighteenth  Amendment  as 
it  is  there  can  be  no  repeal  of  that  portion 
of  the  Constitution.  The  leaders  of  the  oppo- 
sition understand  full  well  that  there  is  not 
the  slightest  hope  of  securing  the  repeal  of 
the  Eighteenth  Amendment  to  the  Federal 
Constitution. 

The  national  prohibitory  law,  which  is  the'*' 
code  putting  into  effect  the  Eighteenth 
Amendment,  could,  of  course,  be  changed  by 
a majority  vote  in  both  houses  of  Congress,  •» 
with  the  approval  of  the  President  of  the 
United  States.  If  the  President  did  not  ap- 
prove of  such  modification  it  would  require 
a two-thirds  majority  in  each  of  the  two 

[18] 


houses  of  Congress.  Where,  however,  are 
the  votes  in  Congress  to  come  from  in  order 
to  provide  the  required  majority  for  a modi- 
fication of  the  national  prohibition  code? 
Certainly  such  votes  are  not  likely  to  come 
from  Congressmen  representing  districts  in 
the  states  of  Maine  and  Kansas  and  a score 
of  other  states  where  the  sentiment  of  the 
people  is  overwhelmingly  in  favor  of  prohi- 
bition. Certainly  such  votes  cannot  be  ex- 
pected from  United  States  Senators  repre- 
senting states  where  the  sentiment  is  so 
strong  that  those  states  would  be  under  pro- 
hibition even  if  national  prohibition  did  not 
exist.  If  the  modification  program  were  to 
receive  the  support  of  every  Congressman 
representing  a normally  wet  district  it  could 
not  thus  muster  30  per  cent  of  the  votes  in 
the  lower  house  of  Congress,  and  if  such 
modification  scheme  were  to  be  supported  by 
every  United  States  Senator  who  represents 
a normally  wet  state  it  could  not  thus  muster 
for  its  support  one-third  of  the  membership 
of  the  Senate.  No  one  knows  better  than  the 
wet  leaders  in  and  out  of  Congress  that  the 
hope  of  weakening  the  national  prohibition 
law  is  so  remote  that  it  need  not  be  given 
serious  consideration. 

Without  doubt  the  only  tangible  result 
which  the  modificationists  can  reasonably 
hope  to  secure  by  all  the  noisy  campaigns 
before  Congress,  in  hearings  by  committees, 
in  action  by  State  Legislatures,  in  congres- 
sional, senatorial,  gubernatorial  primaries  and 
elections  with  wet  candidacies,  or  in  so-called 
•state  referenda,  is  to  encourage  the  spirit 
of  nullification  in  the  wet  centers  of  the  na- 
tion and  temporarily  to  strengthen  the  back- 
bones of  bootleggers  and  other  prohibition 
law  violators. 


The  problem  which  the  prohibition  forces 
in  America  face  today  is  not  the  repeal  of 
the  Eighteenth  Amendment  or  the  weaken- 
ing of  the  national  prohibition  law.  It  is, 
rather,  poor  observance  and  lax  enforcement 
in  a few  great  wet  cities.  This  condition  caj 
be  greatly  helped  by  a greater  degree  of  effi- 
ciency in  the  state  and  federal  enforcement 
departments,  but  it  can  be  dealt  with,  ade- 
quately, only  through  educational  processes, 
which,  of  necessity,  are  slow  and  tedious — 
but  sure. 

Permanency  of  Prohibition  Assured 

Of  all  the  factors  that  need  to  be  taken 
into  account  in  any  prognostication  as  to  the 
future  of  American  prohibition,  probably  the 
most  important  and  the  most  significant  are 
those  which  have  to  do  with  the  economic, 
social  and  industrial  requirements  of  the  new 
day  which  the  United  States  of  America 
faces. 

Economic  and  industrial  demands  had 
much  to  do  with  the  adoption  of  American 
prohibition.  Those  demands  are  more  im- 
perative by  far  today  than  they  were  when 
prohibition  was  adopted  six  years  ago. 
Transportation  and  communication  have  been 
undergoing  a real  transformation  during  the 
past  decade.  The  new  industrial  revolution, 
in  the  throes  of  which  the  United  States  of 
America  now  finds  herself,  has  made  re- 
markable progress  during  the  last  six  years. 
Where  unskilled  labor  was  an  important  fac- 
tor in  industry  only  a few  years  ago,  the  re- 
quirement now  is  for  skilled  workmen,  with 
clear  eyes,  keen  wits,  steady  nerves  and  un- 
clouded brains.  The  transformation  in  this 
respect,  for  instance,  in  the  steel  industry,  in 
mining  operations,  in  transportation  and  in 
many  other  lines  involving  the  vast  majority 

[20] 


of  industrial  enterprises  and  industrial  work- 
ers, as  well  as  involving  the  protection  and 
safety  of  the  public  as  a whole,  is  nothing 
short  of  a modern  miracle.  Locomotive  engi- 
neers, operators  of  electrical  machines  that 
have  been  multiplied  by  leaps  and  bounds  in 
all  the  leading  industries,  drivers  of  20,000,000 
automobiles  and  auto  trucks,  which  have 
more  than  doubled  since  prohibition  was 
adopted,  to  say  nothing  of  airship  pilots  and 
mechanics  and  other  operators  in  absolutely 
new  enterprises,  which  in  more  intimate  re- 
lationship than  ever  before  link  the  industrial 
worker  with  the  electric  dynamo,  all  help  to 
raise  the  pertinent  and  significant  question  as 
to  where,  in  this  new  industrial  revolution,  is 
the  place  for  beverage  alcohol. 

Thus  there  are  being  created  new  laws  to 
help  support  the  Eighteenth  Amendment  and 
the  national  prohibition  code  in  modern  in- 
dustrial America.  Those  new  laws  are  not 
written  on  state  or  national  statute  books, 
but  they  are  unavoidable,  relentless  and  irre- 
vocable. They  are  the  laws  of  efficiency, 
exactitude,  elimination  of  waste,  conservation 
of  man  power,  speed  and  safety.  There  can 
be  no  escape  from  the  inevitable  operation  of 
these  laws  of  the  new  age.  Beverage  alcohol 
belongs  to  a lower  and  a slower  civilization. 


i 


[21  ] 


i 


